black night, cold heart
by Narquelie
Summary: She sees him at the cemetery, leaning over Allison's grave, a black-clad ghost with yellow roses in his hands. - [Isaac/Lydia] & [Allison/Lydia], [side Parrish/Lydia] [Season 5 AU]


She sees him at the cemetery, leaning over Allison's grave, a black-clad ghost with yellow roses in his hands.

Lydia blinks, expects him to disappear. He doesn't.

She walks up to the grave, leaves crunching beneath her heels. She lays down her flowers, and her eyes water, from the wind.

"Why did you come back?" she asks, her voice harsh, accusing; she's not sure if she really needs to know.

"I wanted to go home."

 _ _But this isn't home anymore.__ Isaac doesn't say it, but Lydia knows.

.

.

.

The Jeep in front of Scott's house is replaced with Chris Argent's silver Toyota and Lydia lingers on the porch, tries to wrap her mind around it. Stiles is gone, just as everyone else, except for her and Isaac, who tries his best to put the pieces of Scott McCall back together. How can they help anyone if they can't even help each other? They're too young and too old and too broken to be the saviors anymore.

The silver Toyota looks the same as it did a year ago, all sleek lines and immaculate paint, as if the world hadn't fallen apart. She wonders if the car still smells like Allison; of her soft Miss Dior perfume, mint, the ever lingering scent of gunpowder.

She doesn't dare come any closer.

(Inside the house:

Scott cries and her heart breaks splits into more and more pieces disintegrates –

Lydia clamps her teeth down on her bottom lip, presses too hard and her mouth wells with blood,

Isaac's eyes turn amber, because even though these walls are no longer his home – his pack (what's left of it) still is.)

.

.

.

They find another body.

And another.

Death is insatiable, relentless, it keeps taking away and swallowing their world whole and Lydia doesn't even scream anymore. Her throat is too raw. Her voice too broken.

She talks to Allison in a hoarse whisper.

Isaac finds her when her knees are shaking from the cold; the wind tugs at her hair, making her resemble a wild creature with a crown of fallen leaves on her head. He puts red roses on the tombstone, then places his hand above the silver engraving.

 _ _In memory of__

 _ _Allison Argent__

 _ _1994 - 2012__

 _ _Protected those who could not protect themselves.__

"I never got the chance to say goodbye," he says, his words lost in the wind. "To any of them."

Every person you love takes a part of you for themselves. When you bury them all, what is left of you but skin and bones and broken heart?

She remembers Erica and Boyd, but barely, memories of them faded like old letters. She remembers fear and anger and worry and sadness, because they were lost and too young and didn't deserve any of what happened to them.

But Isaac was their friend. A friend who watched their coffins lowered into the ground. A friend who carried stolen flowers to their graves.

She doesn't say she's sorry. But she makes room for him, next to her on the yellow leaves.

.

.

.

Isaac doesn't go to class, propriety be damned to hell, but it doesn't stop him from appearing near her biology classroom, his back leaning against the lockers.

"Why did you come back?" she asks, and the corner of his mouth lifts in a mockery of a smile, his blue eyes dull and inexpressive.

"For Scott."

And she's almost grateful – for the way he throws his arm around Scott's shoulders when the boy exits the classroom, for his stupid jokes that make Scott laugh anyway, and for the way he keeps him upright, keeps him from falling.

"You coming with?" he calls over his shoulder and Lydia thinks about the silver car in the parking lot and what it would feel like to get inside. Her hand tightens against the strap of her purse.

"Not yet."

.

.

.

Training with Parrish is torture, but her need to be able to protect herself trumps the inconvenience. She takes the punches and kicks and gives back the best she can, suffers through his warm touches and sweet smiles and flexing abs. He makes sure he doesn't hurt her, is so gentle he barely ever leaves a bruise and she loves it and hates it equally, so unused to being cared for.

She's nothing fragile or precious, but he makes her feel like she is.

She's never fallen for someone like that before.

The thing is: she knows he wants her. Sees it in the way he watches her, puppy-eyed, full of longing, sees it in his blush when she makes a daring comment, sees it in the way his body curls protectively in front of her when they arrive at a crime scene. The other thing, though: she knows nothing will ever come out of it. His moral code, his righteousness – they stand in the way. He will never be hers.

Maybe it's better that way.

She doesn't want to ruin him, too.

.

.

.

She says: "Your plan won't work."

What she wants to say is: "You left us, you left __Scott__. This is no longer my problem to solve."

Malia bares her teeth in annoyance and Theo's voice rises, his questions like bullets, aimed straight for Lydia's heart. __Why won't you help us? What's wrong with you are you going crazy why are you giving up we thought you were better than that Lydia –__

She thought so too, once. Once, she believed she could be a hero – that they could save everyone and at the end of the day still end up curled up into each other on a couch, sipping hot chocolate and watching movies, the warmth of the pack healing every injury.

But not even the pack can raise the dead.

"If you go through with it, you'll die. It's a shitty plan." She remembers Scott, holding her hand in his, swearing that he'll figure out the way to save them, remembers Allison and her breath against Lydia's cheek as she taught her how to shoot an arrow, ( _ _it's just you and the target, no matter what happens don't lose your focus, don't give up–__ ),

and she remembers herself, with her back pressed to the cold, wet wall, her fists curled into the fabric of Stiles's shirt, staring into his dead eyes, begging the Nogitsune, __please I'll do anything just stop this don't hurt her__ ,

remembers him laughing, drunk on her fear and misery, remembers him letting Allison die.

"What do you suggest then?"

"Nothing." They're just a bunch of teenagers. They can't handle this. "Just let it go."

.

.

.

He lights up a cigarette and Lydia makes a face.

He shrugs. He says, by way of explanation, "it's very French."

"It's very gross." But she doesn't tell him to stomp it out or go away, instead she leans forward, inhaling the smoke – it surprises her, how grateful the normalcy of it makes her.

Suddenly, he laughs. "I just remembered asking you out in junior high."

Lydia wrinkles her nose – she doesn't remember; she's sure she told him to be on his merry way, though, he was nothing to her then (he's nothing to her now, but she still allows him to curl a strand of her hair around his finger, allows him to blow smoke into her lungs). She indulges him, nonetheless. "What happened?"

"You told me to come back when the bike I rode to school had an engine, not a chain."

He laughs again, harder, like it's the best joke he's heard in years and Lydia's cheeks warm in shame. She juts up her chin, tries to remember the person she used to be. "It was excellent advise."

Isaac sobers, takes another drag from his cigarette. "I have an engine now."

Her blood runs cold. "It's not yours."

"It's mine. Chris doesn't want it anymore."

It doesn't surprise her. She's seen him pack his daughter's things into hermetic boxes, seen him lock up her room, their apartment, seen him flee away to the other side of the world. __What is left of you but skin and bones and broken heart?__

Isaac leans forward, cigarette breath and taunting eyes. "You owe me a ride, Martin."

She laughs him in the face.

.

.

.

She laughs him in the face, later, when she wraps her legs around his waist and his hands rest unmoving just above the curve of her ass. There is an uncertain look in his eyes, one he desperately tries to hide.

"I'm not made of glass, Lahey," she says, cants her hips forward, presses her shoulders against the wall. She may understand his reluctance and his gentleness, but she wants none of it; she wants to __feel__ something, just for a few minutes, wants to be her old self again.

She tastes the cigarettes on his tongue, bitter and nasty, and the metallic tinge of her blood. He kisses her hard, harder than she expected.

And she thinks: these lips kissed Allison and these hands touched her body, and this tongue painted love letters against her skin. It sets her alight.

She claws at him, nails digging into his back, mouth opening so wide, as if to swallow him whole.

She steals from him the memory of Allison's touch, and for a single moment, she's alright.

.

.

.

"So, Lahey's back."

There are dark circles under Stiles's eyes and his face is a deathly shade of white, almost bluish in the half-light of the street lamp. Lydia sways on her heels in impatience, looks longingly at her house with cuddly Prada and a warm bed inside.

"He's living at Scott's now, isn't he? They're like – what, rekindling their bromance?"

Lydia rolls her eyes so hard it hurts. "Why don't you ask them yourself?"

"You talk to him. Which is strange," he makes that annoying chiding face she hates, "don't you remember how he tried to kill you a while back?"

"Well, it's not like you haven't made your fair share of mistakes, Stiles. You shouldn't be judging anyone."

Too late she realizes the cruelty of her words. He takes a step back, presses his bloodless lips into a tight line. __I didn't mean it__ , she almost says, but then she remembers a monster wearing Stiles's face, a monster whispering filth into her ear, a monster luring Allison to her death. Lydia's heart breaks, again, and she desperately grasps at her walls and defenses and doesn't apologize.

"I'm just trying to look out for you," Stiles says quietly, and the defeat in his voice is too much for her to bear.

"It's too dangerous to be out this late. We should go."

(This town has become more dangerous than the woods.)

She leaves him in the dark.

.

.

.

She's on her way to another crime scene, fingers tight on the steering wheel and teeth chattering violently; she stops at the streetlights and the passenger side door swings open; Isaac gets in.

"What do you think you're doing?" She pulls the car forward as the light turns to green, trying to calm her thrashing heart.

"Relax," he sighs. "Scott asked me to check on that dead body... the one you're apparently going to find soon?" He sounds so bored, as if waking up at 4 AM and taking a ride to a crime scene is nothing more but a tedious inconvenience to him.

The real reason though: Scott doesn't want her to go alone. Which is nice, but she's already called Parrish for backup and she's sure she should trust him more than a traumatized teenage boy.

Isaac doesn't seem to care.

"Where is he, anyway?" she asks, turning up the heat.

Isaac stretches in his seat. His eyes flash amber in sudden anger. "He's off helping a bunch of morons."

"But they left him. They don't want to have anything to do with him."

He shrugs, grinds his teeth together. "He's too noble to give up on them."

They arrive at a closed petrol station at the very edge of town. The cold wind bites at her cheeks and hands as they make their way to the small building, and Lydia shivers, for the tenth time regretting not putting on a coat. Isaac unceremoniously tugs his scarf off his neck and throws it at her, not even turning back to see if she's caught it. Begrudgingly she puts it on and his scent invades her senses; it's appalling but not enough for her to refuse its warmth.

They find the body near the shop; a homeless man, a ragged wound taking up most of his neck. It looks familiar, tugs at Lydia's memories from the time she'd been stuck at the Sherrif's office a year back, poring over unsolved homicide cases with Stiles.

It's not a chimera.

She watches Isaac as he inspects the victim, the way he searches for a scent that could help, for distinctive scratches and marks on the ground.

It doesn't take long until they hear sirens approaching and she can breathe easily at last, comforted by the knowledge that Parrish is going to take it off their hands.

"Lydia, are you okay?" is the first thing Parrish says when he approaches and Lydia's insides fill with butterflies and liquid warmth. She nods jerkily, angry with herself for the way he makes her feel.

He points at the body. "Is this another one of the Dread Doctors' experiments?"

"No, we're actually pretty sure it's – "

" – a fatal Omega bite," Isaac finishes for her. He extends his hands theatrically as if inviting them into his home. The time he's spent with Chris must have taught him a thing or two. "The footprints are uneven, and there are quite a few claw marks in the dirt. The wound is nasty, looks like he couldn't control himself and just went for the guy's throat. Compulsive. And, you know, the scent clearly screams __Omega__."

Parrish looks at him with poorly hidden disdain as if he can't bring himself to trust him, not with a dead body, definitely not with Lydia. But Lydia nods, confirming Isaac's words, and the Deputy's eyes soften. It brings a badly-restrained smirk to Isaac's lips.

They walk back to the car, Lydia's eyes unconsciously lingering on Parrish's diminishing frame.

"I thought Lydia Martin always gets what she wants," Isaac says tauntingly, and she snaps back to reality.

"What do you mean?"

He rolls his eyes. "You have it real bad for the cop. Hilarious, by the way. Why aren't you doing anything about it yet?"

"You're dumb," she says, pursing her lips, "and irritating, and I'm not talking to you about it."

"Come on, what happened to the girl who acted like the fucking queen of the world and treated everything as if it belonged to her?" His mockery is grating at her nerves, and she feels like she's suffocating on his smell, some stupid cologne and leather and cigarette smoke that clings to him like a second skin.

"She got smart."

She pulls out of the car park.

"This is not smart," he says, "this is __scared__. I knew scared. It makes you tiny, makes you run away."

Lydia's heart pounds in her ears. She tightens her hand on the gearshift. "You're not scared anymore?"

"No," he says, and it's tired, and strange. "I'm not anything anymore."

.

.

.

She hears whispers. It's nothing at first – a sharp intake of breath, then another, then five; muffled sentences, familiar voices from afar. She forgets about it as soon as the exchange ends; her mind protecting itself with impenetrable walls to keep her sane.

She keeps looking back when she walks down the school hallways, her skin covered in goosebumps, anxiety curling into a dark cocoon around her. The voices come more frequently and she almost understands the words – it's like their meaning is stuck on the tip of her tongue, barely out of reach.

 _ _Crazy, you're crazy,__ she tells herself and her voice sounds like Peter's. Bile rises in her throat.

.

.

.

Running water drowns out the noises and she tells herself to breathe. She's been through worse. She's still alive.

She doesn't hear the door open.

"Do you know where Scott is?," Isaac begins, looking around her pink, polished room, as if his alpha might be hidden in some corner. "I've been looking for him for the past hour and –"

His gaze falls on her.

It makes her uncomfortable – the clinical way he takes her in; her wet hair sticking to her forehead, mascara tracks down her cheeks, black splotches around her eyes. Lydia tightens her bathrobe around her body, lips quivering slightly.

He's going to taunt her. Throw it all in her face.

 _ _Crazy girl, useless girl. I knew you weren't strong enough.__ What Peter used to say.

Silence stretches.

And something breaks.

"You were right. I'm scared," she says, her voice small, hands white against red silk, "I'm so scared, it __paralyzes__ me. I can't breathe," every breath she takes feels like the beginning of a scream, the pressure building in her chest, suffocating –, "and I miss __her,__ every second of every minute of every day."

Tears bite at her eyes. "And I'm tired. I'm so tired. I don't know what to do."

He's still silent.

The buzzing starts building in her ears again, and it takes all of her strength not to scream. "Are you happy? You should be __gloating__ , you were right – "

She blinks and suddenly he's on her, strong arms around her, hot breath against her forehead. He holds her tightly, nearly crushing her to his chest, but somehow, finally, she feels safe. Reluctantly, she extends her hands and presses them to his back, curls her fingers into his jacket. "No," he says, "it doesn't make me happy anymore."

It would have, once. He even would have laughed, the boy who left claw marks on lockers, who would have poisoned her without a second thought.

"Why did you come back?" she whispers into his chest, and feels his breath stop for a moment beneath her cheek.

"I wanted to stop running."

The sad part is, they can't. They'll never stop running.

They're cursed like that.

.

.

.

Hayden is dying. Everyone is dying, it's nothing new, but this one hits too close to home and Lydia wants to scream, but screaming would be final, so she keeps her mouth shut; barely breathes.

Parrish is taking the bodies. They lock him in a cell, and he asks her to leave, but she won't, she __can't,__ spends the night curled on the floor with their shoulders touching and prays. __Please, don't become a nightmare.__

 _ _("Do I scare you?"__

" _ _Once.")__

Dread crawls up her spine. Her blood runs cold and her throat stings and whispers still ring in her ears.

And then, whispers turn to screams.

.

.

.

(Knowing the future – it's another curse.)

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.

Theo drags her into the woods.

At the end of the day, this is what she is: a rag doll; broken, a galaxy of stitches coming undone under her dress; thrown around and discarded when she's no longer of use.

She is in the Hale house, wolfsbane flowers resting in her palm; __come on, sweetheart__ , Peter croons, __bring me back__ ;

She is tied to a chair and Jennifer Blake leans above her, her smile like a worm, __a banshee, the wailing woman right before my eyes,__ she says and the garrote cuts into Lydia's neck;

She is at the Oak Creek camp, the monster breathing at her neck, and she's the lure and she feels death coming, crawling up her spine, and then Allison –

Theo throws her to the ground near the Nemeton.

"Watch this, Lydia," he calls. "You think you lost your mind? Well, watch this!"

She watches as the chimeras come back to life. Watches as they rise, and bare their teeth, the way it glints pearly-white in the moonlight.

"All of you belong to me."

Lydia crawls to her knees.

 _ _Not again, never again.__

She screams.

She screams until the ground shakes, until all of them raise their hands to cover their ears, until blood runs from their noses and vessels burst in their eyes, until they collapse in the dirt.

 _ _Never again.__

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.

.

On her eighteenth birthday a shiny silver Toyota pulls up in front of her house.

Isaac opens the passenger side door for her, places her suitcase in the trunk.

Lydia gets in. She doesn't look back.

(The car smells like leather, cigarettes, and Isaac's stupid cologne;

but that's alright.)


End file.
